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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy by Dickens
+#45 in our series by Charles Dickens
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+Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy
+
+by Charles Dickens
+
+August, 1998  [Etext #1421]
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy by Dickens
+******This file should be named mlrlg10.txt or mlrlg10.zip******
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+This etext was prepared from the 1894 Chapman and Hall "Christmas
+Stories" edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
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+This etext was prepared from the 1894 Chapman and Hall "Christmas
+Stories" edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+
+Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I--MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES HOW SHE WENT ON, AND WENT OVER
+
+
+
+Ah!  It's pleasant to drop into my own easy-chair my dear though a
+little palpitating what with trotting up-stairs and what with
+trotting down, and why kitchen stairs should all be corner stairs is
+for the builders to justify though I do not think they fully
+understand their trade and never did, else why the sameness and why
+not more conveniences and fewer draughts and likewise making a
+practice of laying the plaster on too thick I am well convinced
+which holds the damp, and as to chimney-pots putting them on by
+guess-work like hats at a party and no more knowing what their
+effect will be upon the smoke bless you than I do if so much, except
+that it will mostly be either to send it down your throat in a
+straight form or give it a twist before it goes there.  And what I
+says speaking as I find of those new metal chimneys all manner of
+shapes (there's a row of 'em at Miss Wozenham's lodging-house lower
+down on the other side of the way) is that they only work your smoke
+into artificial patterns for you before you swallow it and that I'd
+quite as soon swallow mine plain, the flavour being the same, not to
+mention the conceit of putting up signs on the top of your house to
+show the forms in which you take your smoke into your inside.
+
+Being here before your eyes my dear in my own easy-chair in my own
+quiet room in my own Lodging-House Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street
+Strand London situated midway between the City and St. James's--if
+anything is where it used to be with these hotels calling themselves
+Limited but called unlimited by Major Jackman rising up everywhere
+and rising up into flagstaffs where they can't go any higher, but my
+mind of those monsters is give me a landlord's or landlady's
+wholesome face when I come off a journey and not a brass plate with
+an electrified number clicking out of it which it's not in nature
+can be glad to see me and to which I don't want to be hoisted like
+molasses at the Docks and left there telegraphing for help with the
+most ingenious instruments but quite in vain--being here my dear I
+have no call to mention that I am still in the Lodgings as a
+business hoping to die in the same and if agreeable to the clergy
+partly read over at Saint Clement's Danes and concluded in Hatfield
+churchyard when lying once again by my poor Lirriper ashes to ashes
+and dust to dust.
+
+Neither should I tell you any news my dear in telling you that the
+Major is still a fixture in the Parlours quite as much so as the
+roof of the house, and that Jemmy is of boys the best and brightest
+and has ever had kept from him the cruel story of his poor pretty
+young mother Mrs. Edson being deserted in the second floor and dying
+in my arms, fully believing that I am his born Gran and him an
+orphan, though what with engineering since he took a taste for it
+and him and the Major making Locomotives out of parasols broken iron
+pots and cotton-reels and them absolutely a getting off the line and
+falling over the table and injuring the passengers almost equal to
+the originals it really is quite wonderful.  And when I says to the
+Major, "Major can't you by ANY means give us a communication with
+the guard?" the Major says quite huffy, "No madam it's not to be
+done," and when I says "Why not?" the Major says, "That is between
+us who are in the Railway Interest madam and our friend the Right
+Honourable Vice-President of the Board of Trade" and if you'll
+believe me my dear the Major wrote to Jemmy at school to consult him
+on the answer I should have before I could get even that amount of
+unsatisfactoriness out of the man, the reason being that when we
+first began with the little model and the working signals beautiful
+and perfect (being in general as wrong as the real) and when I says
+laughing "What appointment am I to hold in this undertaking
+gentlemen?" Jemmy hugs me round the neck and tells me dancing, "You
+shall be the Public Gran" and consequently they put upon me just as
+much as ever they like and I sit a growling in my easy-chair.
+
+My dear whether it is that a grown man as clever as the Major cannot
+give half his heart and mind to anything--even a plaything--but must
+get into right down earnest with it, whether it is so or whether it
+is not so I do not undertake to say, but Jemmy is far out-done by
+the serious and believing ways of the Major in the management of the
+United Grand Junction Lirriper and Jackman Great Norfolk Parlour
+Line, "For" says my Jemmy with the sparkling eyes when it was
+christened, "we must have a whole mouthful of name Gran or our dear
+old Public" and there the young rogue kissed me, "won't stump up."
+So the Public took the shares--ten at ninepence, and immediately
+when that was spent twelve Preference at one and sixpence--and they
+were all signed by Jemmy and countersigned by the Major, and between
+ourselves much better worth the money than some shares I have paid
+for in my time.  In the same holidays the line was made and worked
+and opened and ran excursions and had collisions and burst its
+boilers and all sorts of accidents and offences all most regular
+correct and pretty.  The sense of responsibility entertained by the
+Major as a military style of station-master my dear starting the
+down train behind time and ringing one of those little bells that
+you buy with the little coal-scuttles off the tray round the man's
+neck in the street did him honour, but noticing the Major of a night
+when he is writing out his monthly report to Jemmy at school of the
+state of the Rolling Stock and the Permanent Way and all the rest of
+it (the whole kept upon the Major's sideboard and dusted with his
+own hands every morning before varnishing his boots) I notice him as
+full of thought and care as full can be and frowning in a fearful
+manner, but indeed the Major does nothing by halves as witness his
+great delight in going out surveying with Jemmy when he has Jemmy to
+go with, carrying a chain and a measuring-tape and driving I don't
+know what improvements right through Westminster Abbey and fully
+believed in the streets to be knocking everything upside down by Act
+of Parliament.  As please Heaven will come to pass when Jemmy takes
+to that as a profession!
+
+Mentioning my poor Lirriper brings into my head his own youngest
+brother the Doctor though Doctor of what I am sure it would be hard
+to say unless Liquor, for neither Physic nor Music nor yet Law does
+Joshua Lirriper know a morsel of except continually being summoned
+to the County Court and having orders made upon him which he runs
+away from, and once was taken in the passage of this very house with
+an umbrella up and the Major's hat on, giving his name with the
+door-mat round him as Sir Johnson Jones, K.C.B. in spectacles
+residing at the Horse Guards.  On which occasion he had got into the
+house not a minute before, through the girl letting him on the mat
+when he sent in a piece of paper twisted more like one of those
+spills for lighting candles than a note, offering me the choice
+between thirty shillings in hand and his brains on the premises
+marked immediate and waiting for an answer.  My dear it gave me such
+a dreadful turn to think of the brains of my poor dear Lirriper's
+own flesh and blood flying about the new oilcloth however unworthy
+to be so assisted, that I went out of my room here to ask him what
+he would take once for all not to do it for life when I found him in
+the custody of two gentlemen that I should have judged to be in the
+feather-bed trade if they had not announced the law, so fluffy were
+their personal appearance.  "Bring your chains, sir," says Joshua to
+the littlest of the two in the biggest hat, "rivet on my fetters!"
+Imagine my feelings when I pictered him clanking up Norfolk Street
+in irons and Miss Wozenham looking out of window!  "Gentlemen," I
+says all of a tremble and ready to drop "please to bring him into
+Major Jackman's apartments."  So they brought him into the Parlours,
+and when the Major spies his own curly-brimmed hat on him which
+Joshua Lirriper had whipped off its peg in the passage for a
+military disguise he goes into such a tearing passion that he tips
+it off his head with his hand and kicks it up to the ceiling with
+his foot where it grazed long afterwards.  "Major" I says "be cool
+and advise me what to do with Joshua my dead and gone Lirriper's own
+youngest brother."  "Madam" says the Major "my advice is that you
+board and lodge him in a Powder Mill, with a handsome gratuity to
+the proprietor when exploded."  "Major" I says "as a Christian you
+cannot mean your words."  "Madam" says the Major "by the Lord I do!"
+and indeed the Major besides being with all his merits a very
+passionate man for his size had a bad opinion of Joshua on account
+of former troubles even unattended by liberties taken with his
+apparel.  When Joshua Lirriper hears this conversation betwixt us he
+turns upon the littlest one with the biggest hat and says "Come sir!
+Remove me to my vile dungeon.  Where is my mouldy straw?"  My dear
+at the picter of him rising in my mind dressed almost entirely in
+padlocks like Baron Trenck in Jemmy's book I was so overcome that I
+burst into tears and I says to the Major, "Major take my keys and
+settle with these gentlemen or I shall never know a happy minute
+more," which was done several times both before and since, but still
+I must remember that Joshua Lirriper has his good feelings and shows
+them in being always so troubled in his mind when he cannot wear
+mourning for his brother.  Many a long year have I left off my
+widow's mourning not being wishful to intrude, but the tender point
+in Joshua that I cannot help a little yielding to is when he writes
+"One single sovereign would enable me to wear a decent suit of
+mourning for my much-loved brother.  I vowed at the time of his
+lamented death that I would ever wear sables in memory of him but
+Alas how short-sighted is man, How keep that vow when penniless!"
+It says a good deal for the strength of his feelings that he
+couldn't have been seven year old when my poor Lirriper died and to
+have kept to it ever since is highly creditable.  But we know
+there's good in all of us,--if we only knew where it was in some of
+us,--and though it was far from delicate in Joshua to work upon the
+dear child's feelings when first sent to school and write down into
+Lincolnshire for his pocket-money by return of post and got it,
+still he is my poor Lirriper's own youngest brother and mightn't
+have meant not paying his bill at the Salisbury Arms when his
+affection took him down to stay a fortnight at Hatfield churchyard
+and might have meant to keep sober but for bad company.
+Consequently if the Major HAD played on him with the garden-engine
+which he got privately into his room without my knowing of it, I
+think that much as I should have regretted it there would have been
+words betwixt the Major and me.  Therefore my dear though he played
+on Mr. Buffle by mistake being hot in his head, and though it might
+have been misrepresented down at Wozenham's into not being ready for
+Mr. Buffle in other respects he being the Assessed Taxes, still I do
+not so much regret it as perhaps I ought.  And whether Joshua
+Lirriper will yet do well in life I cannot say, but I did hear of
+his coming, out at a Private Theatre in the character of a Bandit
+without receiving any offers afterwards from the regular managers.
+
+Mentioning Mr. Baffle gives an instance of there being good in
+persons where good is not expected, for it cannot be denied that Mr.
+Buffle's manners when engaged in his business were not agreeable.
+To collect is one thing, and to look about as if suspicious of the
+goods being gradually removing in the dead of the night by a back
+door is another, over taxing you have no control but suspecting is
+voluntary.  Allowances too must ever be made for a gentleman of the
+Major's warmth not relishing being spoke to with a pen in the mouth,
+and while I do not know that it is more irritable to my own feelings
+to have a low-crowned hat with a broad brim kept on in doors than
+any other hat still I can appreciate the Major's, besides which
+without bearing malice or vengeance the Major is a man that scores
+up arrears as his habit always was with Joshua Lirriper.  So at last
+my dear the Major lay in wait for Mr. Buffle, and it worrited me a
+good deal.  Mr. Buffle gives his rap of two sharp knocks one day and
+the Major bounces to the door.  "Collector has called for two
+quarters' Assessed Taxes" says Mr. Buffle.  "They are ready for him"
+says the Major and brings him in here.  But on the way Mr. Buffle
+looks about him in his usual suspicious manner and the Major fires
+and asks him "Do you see a Ghost sir?"  "No sir" says Mr. Buffle.
+"Because I have before noticed you" says the Major "apparently
+looking for a spectre very hard beneath the roof of my respected
+friend.  When you find that supernatural agent, be so good as point
+him out sir."  Mr. Buffle stares at the Major and then nods at me.
+"Mrs. Lirriper sir" says the Major going off into a perfect steam
+and introducing me with his hand.  "Pleasure of knowing her" says
+Mr. Buffle.  "A--hum!--Jemmy Jackman sir!" says the Major
+introducing himself.  "Honour of knowing you by sight" says Mr.
+Buffle.  "Jemmy Jackman sir" says the Major wagging his head
+sideways in a sort of obstinate fury "presents to you his esteemed
+friend that lady Mrs. Emma Lirriper of Eighty-one Norfolk Street
+Strand London in the County of Middlesex in the United Kingdom of
+Great Britain and Ireland.  Upon which occasion sir," says the
+Major, "Jemmy Jackman takes your hat off."  Mr. Buffle looks at his
+hat where the Major drops it on the floor, and he picks it up and
+puts it on again.  "Sir" says the Major very red and looking him
+full in the face "there are two quarters of the Gallantry Taxes due
+and the Collector has called."  Upon which if you can believe my
+words my dear the Major drops Mr. Buffle's hat off again.  "This--"
+Mr. Buffle begins very angry with his pen in his mouth, when the
+Major steaming more and more says "Take your bit out sir!  Or by the
+whole infernal system of Taxation of this country and every
+individual figure in the National Debt, I'll get upon your back and
+ride you like a horse!" which it's my belief he would have done and
+even actually jerking his neat little legs ready for a spring as it
+was.  "This," says Mr. Buffle without his pen "is an assault and
+I'll have the law of you."  "Sir" replies the Major "if you are a
+man of honour, your Collector of whatever may be due on the
+Honourable Assessment by applying to Major Jackman at the Parlours
+Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings, may obtain what he wants in full at any
+moment."
+
+When the Major glared at Mr. Buffle with those meaning words my dear
+I literally gasped for a teaspoonful of salvolatile in a wine-glass
+of water, and I says "Pray let it go no farther gentlemen I beg and
+beseech of you!"  But the Major could be got to do nothing else but
+snort long after Mr. Buffle was gone, and the effect it had upon my
+whole mass of blood when on the next day of Mr. Buffle's rounds the
+Major spruced himself up and went humming a tune up and down the
+street with one eye almost obliterated by his hat there are not
+expressions in Johnson's Dictionary to state.  But I safely put the
+street door on the jar and got behind the Major's blinds with my
+shawl on and my mind made up the moment I saw danger to rush out
+screeching till my voice failed me and catch the Major round the
+neck till my strength went and have all parties bound.  I had not
+been behind the blinds a quarter of an hour when I saw Mr. Buffle
+approaching with his Collecting-books in his hand.  The Major
+likewise saw him approaching and hummed louder and himself
+approached.  They met before the Airy railings.  The Major takes off
+his hat at arm's length and says "Mr. Buffle I believe?"  Mr. Buffle
+takes off HIS hat at arm's length and says "That is my name sir."
+Says the Major "Have you any commands for me, Mr. Buffle?"  Says Mr.
+Buffle "Not any sir."  Then my dear both of 'em bowed very low and
+haughty and parted, and whenever Mr. Buffle made his rounds in
+future him and the Major always met and bowed before the Airy
+railings, putting me much in mind of Hamlet and the other gentleman
+in mourning before killing one another, though I could have wished
+the other gentleman had done it fairer and even if less polite no
+poison.
+
+Mr. Buffle's family were not liked in this neighbourhood, for when
+you are a householder my dear you'll find it does not come by nature
+to like the Assessed, and it was considered besides that a one-horse
+pheayton ought not to have elevated Mrs. Buffle to that height
+especially when purloined from the Taxes which I myself did consider
+uncharitable.  But they were NOT liked and there was that domestic
+unhappiness in the family in consequence of their both being very
+hard with Miss Buffle and one another on account of Miss Buffle's
+favouring Mr. Buffle's articled young gentleman, that it WAS
+whispered that Miss Buffle would go either into a consumption or a
+convent she being so very thin and off her appetite and two close-
+shaved gentlemen with white bands round their necks peeping round
+the corner whenever she went out in waistcoats resembling black
+pinafores.  So things stood towards Mr. Buffle when one night I was
+woke by a frightful noise and a smell of burning, and going to my
+bedroom window saw the whole street in a glow.  Fortunately we had
+two sets empty just then and before I could hurry on some clothes I
+heard the Major hammering at the attics' doors and calling out
+"Dress yourselves!--Fire!  Don't be frightened!--Fire!  Collect your
+presence of mind!--Fire!  All right--Fire!" most tremenjously.  As I
+opened my bedroom door the Major came tumbling in over himself and
+me, and caught me in his arms.  "Major" I says breathless "where is
+it?"  "I don't know dearest madam" says the Major--"Fire!  Jemmy
+Jackman will defend you to the last drop of his blood--Fire!  If the
+dear boy was at home what a treat this would be for him--Fire!" and
+altogether very collected and bold except that he couldn't say a
+single sentence without shaking me to the very centre with roaring
+Fire.  We ran down to the drawing-room and put our heads out of
+window, and the Major calls to an unfeeling young monkey, scampering
+by be joyful and ready to split "Where is it?--Fire!"  The monkey
+answers without stopping "O here's a lark!  Old Buffle's been
+setting his house alight to prevent its being found out that he
+boned the Taxes.  Hurrah!  Fire!"  And then the sparks came flying
+up and the smoke came pouring down and the crackling of flames and
+spatting of water and banging of engines and hacking of axes and
+breaking of glass and knocking at doors and the shouting and crying
+and hurrying and the heat and altogether gave me a dreadful
+palpitation.  "Don't be frightened dearest madam," says the Major,
+"--Fire!  There's nothing to be alarmed at--Fire!  Don't open the
+street door till I come back--Fire!  I'll go and see if I can be of
+any service--Fire!  You're quite composed and comfortable ain't
+you?--Fire, Fire, Fire!"  It was in vain for me to hold the man and
+tell him he'd be galloped to death by the engines--pumped to death
+by his over-exertions--wet-feeted to death by the slop and mess--
+flattened to death when the roofs fell in--his spirit was up and he
+went scampering off after the young monkey with all the breath he
+had and none to spare, and me and the girls huddled together at the
+parlour windows looking at the dreadful flames above the houses over
+the way, Mr. Buffle's being round the corner.  Presently what should
+we see but some people running down the street straight to our door,
+and then the Major directing operations in the busiest way, and then
+some more people and then--carried in a chair similar to Guy Fawkes-
+-Mr. Buffle in a blanket!
+
+My dear the Major has Mr. Buffle brought up our steps and whisked
+into the parlour and carted out on the sofy, and then he and all the
+rest of them without so much as a word burst away again full speed
+leaving the impression of a vision except for Mr. Buffle awful in
+his blanket with his eyes a rolling.  In a twinkling they all burst
+back again with Mrs. Buffle in another blanket, which whisked in and
+carted out on the sofy they all burst off again and all burst back
+again with Miss Buffle in another blanket, which again whisked in
+and carted out they all burst off again and all burst back again
+with Mr. Buffle's articled young gentleman in another blanket--him a
+holding round the necks of two men carrying him by the legs, similar
+to the picter of the disgraceful creetur who has lost the fight (but
+where the chair I do not know) and his hair having the appearance of
+newly played upon.  When all four of a row, the Major rubs his hands
+and whispers me with what little hoarseness he can get together, "If
+our dear remarkable boy was only at home what a delightful treat
+this would be for him!"
+
+My dear we made them some hot tea and toast and some hot brandy-and-
+water with a little comfortable nutmeg in it, and at first they were
+scared and low in their spirits but being fully insured got
+sociable.  And the first use Mr. Buffle made of his tongue was to
+call the Major his Preserver and his best of friends and to say "My
+for ever dearest sir let me make you known to Mrs. Buffle" which
+also addressed him as her Preserver and her best of friends and was
+fully as cordial as the blanket would admit of.  Also Miss Buffle.
+The articled young gentleman's head was a little light and he sat a
+moaning "Robina is reduced to cinders, Robina is reduced to
+cinders!"  Which went more to the heart on account of his having got
+wrapped in his blanket as if he was looking out of a violinceller
+case, until Mr. Buffle says "Robina speak to him!"  Miss Buffle says
+"Dear George!" and but for the Major's pouring down brandy-and-water
+on the instant which caused a catching in his throat owing to the
+nutmeg and a violent fit of coughing it might have proved too much
+for his strength.  When the articled young gentleman got the better
+of it Mr. Buffle leaned up against Mrs. Buffle being two bundles, a
+little while in confidence, and then says with tears in his eyes
+which the Major noticing wiped, "We have not been an united family,
+let us after this danger become so, take her George."  The young
+gentleman could not put his arm out far to do it, but his spoken
+expressions were very beautiful though of a wandering class.  And I
+do not know that I ever had a much pleasanter meal than the
+breakfast we took together after we had all dozed, when Miss Buffle
+made tea very sweetly in quite the Roman style as depicted formerly
+at Covent Garden Theatre and when the whole family was most
+agreeable, as they have ever proved since that night when the Major
+stood at the foot of the Fire-Escape and claimed them as they came
+down--the young gentleman head-foremost, which accounts.  And though
+I do not say that we should be less liable to think ill of one
+another if strictly limited to blankets, still I do say that we
+might most of us come to a better understanding if we kept one
+another less at a distance.
+
+Why there's Wozenham's lower down on the other side of the street.
+I had a feeling of much soreness several years respecting what I
+must still ever call Miss Wozenham's systematic underbidding and the
+likeness of the house in Bradshaw having far too many windows and a
+most umbrageous and outrageous Oak which never yet was seen in
+Norfolk Street nor yet a carriage and four at Wozenham's door, which
+it would have been far more to Bradshaw's credit to have drawn a
+cab.  This frame of mind continued bitter down to the very afternoon
+in January last when one of my girls, Sally Rairyganoo which I still
+suspect of Irish extraction though family represented Cambridge,
+else why abscond with a bricklayer of the Limerick persuasion and be
+married in pattens not waiting till his black eye was decently got
+round with all the company fourteen in number and one horse fighting
+outside on the roof of the vehicle,--I repeat my dear my ill-
+regulated state of mind towards Miss Wozenham continued down to the
+very afternoon of January last past when Sally Rairyganoo came
+banging (I can use no milder expression) into my room with a jump
+which may be Cambridge and may not, and said "Hurroo Missis!  Miss
+Wozenham's sold up!"  My dear when I had it thrown in my face and
+conscience that the girl Sally had reason to think I could be glad
+of the ruin of a fellow-creeter, I burst into tears and dropped back
+in my chair and I says "I am ashamed of myself!"
+
+Well!  I tried to settle to my tea but I could not do it what with
+thinking of Miss Wozenham and her distresses.  It was a wretched
+night and I went up to a front window and looked over at Wozenham's
+and as well as I could make it out down the street in the fog it was
+the dismallest of the dismal and not a light to be seen.  So at last
+I save to myself "This will not do," and I puts on my oldest bonnet
+and shawl not wishing Miss Wozenham to be reminded of my best at
+such a time, and lo and behold you I goes over to Wozenham's and
+knocks.  "Miss Wozenham at home?" I says turning my head when I
+heard the door go.  And then I saw it was Miss Wozenham herself who
+had opened it and sadly worn she was poor thing and her eyes all
+swelled and swelled with crying.  "Miss Wozenham" I says "it is
+several years since there was a little unpleasantness betwixt us on
+the subject of my grandson's cap being down your Airy.  I have
+overlooked it and I hope you have done the same."  "Yes Mrs.
+Lirriper" she says in a surprise, I have."  "Then my dear" I says "I
+should be glad to come in and speak a word to you."  Upon my calling
+her my dear Miss Wozenham breaks out a crying most pitiful, and a
+not unfeeling elderly person that might have been better shaved in a
+nightcap with a hat over it offering a polite apology for the mumps
+having worked themselves into his constitution, and also for sending
+home to his wife on the bellows which was in his hand as a writing-
+desk, looks out of the back parlour and says "The lady wants a word
+of comfort" and goes in again.  So I was able to say quite natural
+"Wants a word of comfort does she sir?  Then please the pigs she
+shall have it!"  And Miss Wozenham and me we go into the front room
+with a wretched light that seemed to have been crying too and was
+sputtering out, and I says "Now my dear, tell me all," and she
+wrings her hands and says "O Mrs. Lirriper that man is in possession
+here, and I have not a friend in the world who is able to help me
+with a shilling."
+
+It doesn't signify a bit what a talkative old body like me said to
+Miss Wozenham when she said that, and so I'll tell you instead my
+dear that I'd have given thirty shillings to have taken her over to
+tea, only I durstn't on account of the Major.  Not you see but what
+I knew I could draw the Major out like thread and wind him round my
+finger on most subjects and perhaps even on that if I was to set
+myself to it, but him and me had so often belied Miss Wozenham to
+one another that I was shamefaced, and I knew she had offended his
+pride and never mine, and likewise I felt timid that that Rairyganoo
+girl might make things awkward.  So I says "My dear if you could
+give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better
+understand your affairs."  And we had the tea and the affairs too
+and after all it was but forty pound, and--There! she's as
+industrious and straight a creeter as ever lived and has paid back
+half of it already, and where's the use of saying more, particularly
+when it ain't the point?  For the point is that when she was a
+kissing my hands and holding them in hers and kissing them again and
+blessing blessing blessing, I cheered up at last and I says "Why
+what a waddling old goose I have been my dear to take you for
+something so very different!"  "Ah but I too" says she "how have I
+mistaken YOU!"  "Come for goodness' sake tell me" I says "what you
+thought of me?"  "O" says she "I thought you had no feeling for such
+a hard hand-to-mouth life as mine, and were rolling in affluence."
+I says shaking my sides (and very glad to do it for I had been a
+choking quite long enough) "Only look at my figure my dear and give
+me your opinion whether if  I was in affluence I should be likely to
+roll in it?  "That did it?  We got as merry as grigs (whatever THEY
+are, if you happen to know my dear--I don't) and I went home to my
+blessed home as happy and as thankful as could be.  But before I
+make an end of it, think even of my having misunderstood the Major!
+Yes!  For next forenoon the Major came into my little room with his
+brushed hat in his hand and he begins "My dearest madam--" and then
+put his face in his hat as if he had just come into church.  As I
+sat all in a maze he came out of his hat and began again.  "My
+esteemed and beloved friend--" and then went into his hat again.
+"Major," I cries out frightened "has anything happened to our
+darling boy?"  "No, no, no" says the Major "but Miss Wozenham has
+been here this morning to make her excuses to me, and by the Lord I
+can't get over what she told me."  "Hoity toity, Major," I says "you
+don't know yet that I was afraid of you last night and didn't think
+half as well of you as I ought!  So come out of church Major and
+forgive me like a dear old friend and I'll never do so any more."
+And I leave you to judge my dear whether I ever did or will.  And
+how affecting to think of Miss Wozenham out of her small income and
+her losses doing so much for her poor old father, and keeping a
+brother that had had the misfortune to soften his brain against the
+hard mathematics as neat as a new pin in the three back represented
+to lodgers as a lumber-room and consuming a whole shoulder of mutton
+whenever provided!
+
+And now my dear I really am a going to tell you about my Legacy if
+you're inclined to favour me with your attention, and I did fully
+intend to have come straight to it only one thing does so bring up
+another.  It was the month of June and the day before Midsummer Day
+when my girl Winifred Madgers--she was what is termed a Plymouth
+Sister, and the Plymouth Brother that made away with her was quite
+right, for a tidier young woman for a wife never came into a house
+and afterwards called with the beautifullest Plymouth Twins--it was
+the day before Midsummer Day when Winifred Madgers comes and says to
+me "A gentleman from the Consul's wishes particular to speak to Mrs.
+Lirriper."  If you'll believe me my dear the Consols at the bank
+where I have a little matter for Jemmy got into my head, and I says
+"Good gracious I hope he ain't had any dreadful fall!"  Says
+Winifred "He don't look as if he had ma'am."  And I says "Show him
+in."
+
+The gentleman came in dark and with his hair cropped what I should
+consider too close, and he says very polite "Madame Lirrwiper!"  I
+says, "Yes sir.  Take a chair."  "I come," says he "frrwom the
+Frrwench Consul's."  So I saw at once that it wasn't the Bank of
+England.   "We have rrweceived," says the gentleman turning his r's
+very curious and skilful, "frrwom the Mairrwie at Sens, a
+communication which I will have the honour to rrwead.  Madame
+Lirrwiper understands Frrwench?"  "O dear no sir!" says I.  "Madame
+Lirriper don't understand anything of the sort."  "It matters not,"
+says the gentleman, "I will trrwanslate."
+
+With that my dear the gentleman after reading something about a
+Department and a Marie (which Lord forgive me I supposed till the
+Major came home was Mary, and never was I more puzzled than to think
+how that young woman came to have so much to do with it) translated
+a lot with the most obliging pains, and it came to this:- That in
+the town of Sons in France an unknown Englishman lay a dying.  That
+he was speechless and without motion.  That in his lodging there was
+a gold watch and a purse containing such and such money and a trunk
+containing such and such clothes, but no passport and no papers,
+except that on his table was a pack of cards and that he had written
+in pencil on the back of the ace of hearts:  "To the authorities.
+When I am dead, pray send what is left, as a last Legacy, to Mrs.
+Lirriper Eighty-one Norfolk Street Strand London."  When the
+gentleman had explained all this, which seemed to be drawn up much
+more methodical than I should have given the French credit for, not
+at that time knowing the nation, he put the document into my hand.
+And much the wiser I was for that you may be sure, except that it
+had the look of being made out upon grocery paper and was stamped
+all over with eagles.
+
+"Does Madame Lirrwiper" says the gentleman "believe she rrwecognises
+her unfortunate compatrrwiot?"
+
+You may imagine the flurry it put me into my dear to he talked to
+about my compatriots.
+
+I says "Excuse me.  Would you have the kindness sir to make your
+language as simple as you can?"
+
+"This Englishman unhappy, at the point of death.  This compatrrwiot
+afflicted," says the gentleman.
+
+"Thank you sir" I says "I understand you now.  No sir I have not the
+least idea who this can be."
+
+"Has Madame Lirrwiper no son, no nephew, no godson, no frrwiend, no
+acquaintance of any kind in Frrwance?"
+
+"To my certain knowledge" says I "no relation or friend, and to the
+best of my belief no acquaintance."
+
+"Pardon me.  You take Locataires?" says the gentleman.
+
+My dear fully believing he was offering me something with his
+obliging foreign manners,-- snuff for anything I knew,--I gave a
+little bend of my head and I says if you'll credit it, "No I thank
+you.  I have not contracted the habit."
+
+The gentleman looks perplexed and says "Lodgers!"
+
+"Oh!" says I laughing.  "Bless the man!  Why yes to be sure!"
+
+"May it not be a former lodger?" says the gentleman.  "Some lodger
+that you pardoned some rrwent?  You have pardoned lodgers some
+rrwent?"
+
+"Hem!  It has happened sir" says I, "but I assure you I can call to
+mind no gentleman of that description that this is at all likely to
+be."
+
+In short my dear, we could make nothing of it, and the gentleman
+noted down what I said and went away.  But he left me the paper of
+which he had two with him, and when the Major came in I says to the
+Major as I put it in his hand "Major here's Old Moore's Almanac with
+the hieroglyphic complete, for your opinion."
+
+It took the Major a little longer to read than I should have
+thought, judging from the copious flow with which he seemed to be
+gifted when attacking the organ-men, but at last he got through it,
+and stood a gazing at me in amazement.
+
+"Major" I says "you're paralysed."
+
+"Madam" says the Major, "Jemmy Jackman is doubled up."
+
+Now it did so happen that the Major had been out to get a little
+information about railroads and steamboats, as our boy was coming
+home for his Midsummer holidays next day and we were going to take
+him somewhere for a treat and a change.  So while the Major stood a
+gazing it came into my head to say to him "Major I wish you'd go and
+look at some of your books and maps, and see whereabouts this same
+town of Sens is in France."
+
+The Major he roused himself and he went into the Parlours and he
+poked about a little, and he came back to me and he says, "Sens my
+dearest madam is seventy-odd miles south of Paris."
+
+With what I may truly call a desperate effort "Major," I says "we'll
+go there with our blessed boy."
+
+If ever the Major was beside himself it was at the thoughts of that
+journey.  All day long he was like the wild man of the woods after
+meeting with an advertisement in the papers telling him something to
+his advantage, and early next morning hours before Jemmy could
+possibly come home he was outside in the street ready to call out to
+him that we was all a going to France.  Young Rosycheeks you may
+believe was as wild as the Major, and they did carry on to that
+degree that I says "If you two children ain't more orderly I'll pack
+you both off to bed."  And then they fell to cleaning up the Major's
+telescope to see France with, and went out and bought a leather bag
+with a snap to hang round Jemmy, and him to carry the money like a
+little Fortunatus with his purse.
+
+If I hadn't passed my word and raised their hopes, I doubt if I
+could have gone through with the undertaking but it was too late to
+go back now.  So on the second day after Midsummer Day we went off
+by the morning mail.  And when we came to the sea which I had never
+seen but once in my life and that when my poor Lirriper was courting
+me, the freshness of it and the deepness and the airiness and to
+think that it had been rolling ever since and that it was always a
+rolling and so few of us minding, made me feel quite serious.  But I
+felt happy too and so did Jemmy and the Major and not much motion on
+the whole, though me with a swimming in the head and a sinking but
+able to take notice that the foreign insides appear to be
+constructed hollower than the English, leading to much more
+tremenjous noises when bad sailors.
+
+But my dear the blueness and the lightness and the coloured look of
+everything and the very sentry-boxes striped and the shining
+rattling drums and the little soldiers with their waists and tidy
+gaiters, when we got across to the Continent--it made me feel as if
+I don't know what--as if the atmosphere had been lifted off me.  And
+as to lunch why bless you if I kept a man-cook and two kitchen-maids
+I couldn't got it done for twice the money, and no injured young
+woman a glaring at you and grudging you and acknowledging your
+patronage by wishing that your food might choke you, but so civil
+and so hot and attentive and every way comfortable except Jemmy
+pouring wine down his throat by tumblers-full and me expecting to
+see him drop under the table.
+
+And the way in which Jemmy spoke his French was a real charm.  It
+was often wanted of him, for whenever anybody spoke a syllable to me
+I says "Non-comprenny, you're very kind, but it's no use--Now
+Jemmy!" and then Jemmy he fires away at 'em lovely, the only thing
+wanting in Jemmy's French being as it appeared to me that he hardly
+ever understood a word of what they said to him which made it
+scarcely of the use it might have been though in other respects a
+perfect Native, and regarding the Major's fluency I should have been
+of the opinion judging French by English that there might have been
+a greater choice of words in the language though still I must admit
+that if I hadn't known him when he asked a military gentleman in a
+gray cloak what o'clock it was I should have took him for a
+Frenchman born.
+
+Before going on to look after my Legacy we were to make one regular
+day in Paris, and I leave you to judge my dear what a day THAT was
+with Jemmy and the Major and the telescope and me and the prowling
+young man at the inn door (but very civil too) that went along with
+us to show the sights.  All along the railway to Paris Jemmy and the
+Major had been frightening me to death by stooping down on the
+platforms at stations to inspect the engines underneath their
+mechanical stomachs, and by creeping in and out I don't know where
+all, to find improvements for the United Grand Junction Parlour, but
+when we got out into the brilliant streets on a bright morning they
+gave up all their London improvements as a bad job and gave their
+minds to Paris.  Says the prowling young man to me "Will I speak
+Inglis No?"  So I says "If you can young man I shall take it as a
+favour," but after half-an-hour of it when I fully believed the man
+had gone mad and me too I says "Be so good as fall back on your
+French sir," knowing that then I shouldn't have the agonies of
+trying to understand him, which was a happy release.  Not that I
+lost much more than the rest either, for I generally noticed that
+when he had described something very long indeed and I says to Jemmy
+"What does he say Jemmy?"  Jemmy says looking with vengeance in his
+eye "He is so jolly indistinct!" and that when he had described it
+longer all over again and I says to Jemmy "Well Jemmy what's it all
+about?" Jemmy says "He says the building was repaired in seventeen
+hundred and four, Gran."
+
+Wherever that prowling young man formed his prowling habits I cannot
+be expected to know, but the way in which he went round the corner
+while we had our breakfasts and was there again when we swallowed
+the last crumb was most marvellous, and just the same at dinner and
+at night, prowling equally at the theatre and the inn gateway and
+the shop doors when we bought a trifle or two and everywhere else
+but troubled with a tendency to spit.  And of Paris I can tell you
+no more my dear than that it's town and country both in one, and
+carved stone and long streets of high houses and gardens and
+fountains and statues and trees and gold, and immensely big soldiers
+and immensely little soldiers and the pleasantest nurses with the
+whitest caps a playing at skipping-rope with the bunchiest babies in
+the flattest caps, and clean table-cloths spread everywhere for
+dinner and people sitting out of doors smoking and sipping all day
+long and little plays being acted in the open air for little people
+and every shop a complete and elegant room, and everybody seeming to
+play at everything in this world.  And as to the sparkling lights my
+dear after dark, glittering high up and low down and on before and
+on behind and all round, and the crowd of theatres and the crowd of
+people and the crowd of all sorts, it's pure enchantment.  And
+pretty well the only thing that grated on me was that whether you
+pay your fare at the railway or whether you change your money at a
+money-dealer's or whether you take your ticket at the theatre, the
+lady or gentleman is caged up (I suppose by government) behind the
+strongest iron bars having more of a Zoological appearance than a
+free country.
+
+Well to be sure when I did after all get my precious bones to bed
+that night, and my Young Rogue came in to kiss me and asks "What do
+you think of this lovely lovely Paris, Gran?"  I says "Jemmy I feel
+as if it was beautiful fireworks being let off in my head."  And
+very cool and refreshing the pleasant country was next day when we
+went on to look after my Legacy, and rested me much and did me a
+deal of good.
+
+So at length and at last my dear we come to Sens, a pretty little
+town with a great two-towered cathedral and the rooks flying in and
+out of the loopholes and another tower atop of one of the towers
+like a sort of a stone pulpit.  In which pulpit with the birds
+skimming below him if you'll believe me, I saw a speck while I was
+resting at the inn before dinner which they made signs to me was
+Jemmy and which really was.  I had been a fancying as I sat in the
+balcony of the hotel that an Angel might light there and call down
+to the people to be good, but I little thought what Jemmy all
+unknown to himself was a calling down from that high place to some
+one in the town.
+
+The pleasantest-situated inn my dear!  Right under the two towers,
+with their shadows a changing upon it all day like a kind of a
+sundial, and country people driving in and out of the courtyard in
+carts and hooded cabriolets and such like, and a market outside in
+front of the cathedral, and all so quaint and like a picter.  The
+Major and me agreed that whatever came of my Legacy this was the
+place to stay in for our holiday, and we also agreed that our dear
+boy had best not be checked in his joy that night by the sight of
+the Englishman if he was still alive, but that we would go together
+and alone.  For you are to understand that the Major not feeling
+himself quite equal in his wind to the height to which Jemmy had
+climbed, had come back to me and left him with the Guide.
+
+So after dinner when Jemmy had set off to see the river, the Major
+went down to the Mairie, and presently came back with a military
+character in a sword and spurs and a cocked hat and a yellow
+shoulder-belt and long tags about him that he must have found
+inconvenient.  And the Major says "The Englishman still lies in the
+same state dearest madam.  This gentleman will conduct us to his
+lodging."  Upon which the military character pulled off his cocked
+hat to me, and I took notice that he had shaved his forehead in
+imitation of Napoleon Bonaparte but not like.
+
+We wont out at the courtyard gate and past the great doors of the
+cathedral and down a narrow High Street where the people were
+sitting chatting at their shop doors and the children were at play.
+The military character went in front and he stopped at a pork-shop
+with a little statue of a pig sitting up, in the window, and a
+private door that a donkey was looking out of.
+
+When the donkey saw the military character he came slipping out on
+the pavement to turn round and then clattered along the passage into
+a back yard.  So the coast being clear, the Major and me were
+conducted up the common stair and into the front room on the second,
+a bare room with a red tiled floor and the outside lattice blinds
+pulled close to darken it.  As the military character opened the
+blinds I saw the tower where I had seen Jemmy, darkening as the sun
+got low, and I turned to the bed by the wall and saw the Englishman.
+
+It was some kind of brain fever he had had, and his hair was all
+gone, and some wetted folded linen lay upon his head.  I looked at
+him very attentive as he lay there all wasted away with his eyes
+closed, and I says to the Major
+
+"I never saw this face before."
+
+The Major looked at him very attentive too, and he says "I never saw
+this face before."
+
+When the Major explained our words to the military character, that
+gentleman shrugged his shoulders and showed the Major the card on
+which it was written about the Legacy for me.  It had been written
+with a weak and trembling hand in bed, and I knew no more of the
+writing than of the face.  Neither did the Major.
+
+Though lying there alone, the poor creetur was as well taken care of
+as could be hoped, and would have been quite unconscious of any
+one's sitting by him then.  I got the Major to say that we were not
+going away at present and that I would come back to-morrow and watch
+a bit by the bedside.  But I got him to add--and I shook my head
+hard to make it stronger--"We agree that we never saw this face
+before."
+
+Our boy was greatly surprised when we told him sitting out in the
+balcony in the starlight, and he ran over some of those stories of
+former Lodgers, of the Major's putting down, and asked wasn't it
+possible that it might be this lodger or that lodger.  It was not
+possible, and we went to bed.
+
+In the morning just at breakfast-time the military character came
+jingling round, and said that the doctor thought from the signs he
+saw there might be some rally before the end.  So I says to the
+Major and Jemmy, "You two boys go and enjoy yourselves, and I'll
+take my Prayer Book and go sit by the bed."  So I went, and I sat
+there some hours, reading a prayer for him poor soul now and then,
+and it was quite on in the day when he moved his hand.
+
+He had been so still, that the moment he moved I knew of it, and I
+pulled off my spectacles and laid down my book and rose and looked
+at him.  From moving one hand he began to move both, and then his
+action was the action of a person groping in the dark.  Long after
+his eyes had opened, there was a film over them and he still felt
+for his way out into light.  But by slow degrees his sight cleared
+and his hands stopped.  He saw the ceiling, he saw the wall, he saw
+me.  As his sight cleared, mine cleared too, and when at last we
+looked in one another's faces, I started back, and I cries
+passionately:
+
+"O you wicked wicked man!  Your sin has found you out!"
+
+For I knew him, the moment life looked out of his eyes, to be Mr.
+Edson, Jemmy's father who had so cruelly deserted Jemmy's young
+unmarried mother who had died in my arms, poor tender creetur, and
+left Jemmy to me.
+
+"You cruel wicked man!  You bad black traitor!"
+
+With the little strength he had, he made an attempt to turn over on
+his wretched face to hide it.  His arm dropped out of the bed and
+his head with it, and there he lay before me crushed in body and in
+mind.  Surely the miserablest sight under the summer sun!
+
+"O blessed Heaven," I says a crying, "teach me what to say to this
+broken mortal!  I am a poor sinful creetur, and the Judgment is not
+mine."
+
+As I lifted my eyes up to the clear bright sky, I saw the high tower
+where Jemmy had stood above the birds, seeing that very window; and
+the last look of that poor pretty young mother when her soul
+brightened and got free, seemed to shine down from it.
+
+"O man, man, man!" I says, and I went on my knees beside the bed;
+"if your heart is rent asunder and you are truly penitent for what
+you did, Our Saviour will have mercy on you yet!"
+
+As I leaned my face against the bed, his feeble hand could just move
+itself enough to touch me.  I hope the touch was penitent.  It tried
+to hold my dress and keep hold, but the fingers were too weak to
+close.
+
+I lifted him back upon the pillows and I says to him:
+
+"Can you hear me?"
+
+He looked yes.
+
+"Do you know me?"
+
+He looked yes, even yet more plainly.
+
+"I am not here alone.  The Major is with me.  You recollect the
+Major?"
+
+Yes.  That is to say he made out yes, in the same way as before.
+
+"And even the Major and I are not alone.  My grandson--his godson--
+is with us.  Do you hear?  My grandson."
+
+The fingers made another trial to catch my sleeve, but could only
+creep near it and fall.
+
+"Do you know who my grandson is?"
+
+Yes.
+
+"I pitied and loved his lonely mother.  When his mother lay a dying
+I said to her, 'My dear, this baby is sent to a childless old
+woman.'  He has been my pride and joy ever since.  I love him as
+dearly as if he had drunk from my breast.  Do you ask to see my
+grandson before you die?"
+
+Yes.
+
+"Show me, when I leave off speaking, if you correctly understand
+what I say.  He has been kept unacquainted with the story of his
+birth.  He has no knowledge of it.  No suspicion of it.  If I bring
+him here to the side of this bed, he will suppose you to be a
+perfect stranger.  It is more than I can do to keep from him the
+knowledge that there is such wrong and misery in the world; but that
+it was ever so near him in his innocent cradle I have kept from him,
+and I do keep from him, and I ever will keep from him, for his
+mother's sake, and for his own."
+
+He showed me that he distinctly understood, and the tears fell from
+his eyes.
+
+"Now rest, and you shall see him."
+
+So I got him a little wine and some brandy, and I put things
+straight about his bed.  But I began to be troubled in my mind lest
+Jemmy and the Major might be too long of coming back.  What with
+this occupation for my thoughts and hands, I didn't hear a foot upon
+the stairs, and was startled when I saw the Major stopped short in
+the middle of the room by the eyes of the man upon the bed, and
+knowing him then, as I had known him a little while ago.
+
+There was anger in the Major's face, and there was horror and
+repugnance and I don't know what.  So I went up to him and I led him
+to the bedside, and when I clasped my hands and lifted of them up,
+the Major did the like.
+
+"O Lord" I says "Thou knowest what we two saw together of the
+sufferings and sorrows of that young creetur now with Thee.  If this
+dying man is truly penitent, we two together humbly pray Thee to
+have mercy on him!"
+
+The Major says "Amen!" and then after a little stop I whispers him,
+"Dear old friend fetch our beloved boy."  And the Major, so clever
+as to have got to understand it all without being told a word, went
+away and brought him.
+
+Never never never shall I forget the fair bright face of our boy
+when he stood at the foot of the bed, looking at his unknown father.
+And O so like his dear young mother then!
+
+"Jemmy" I says, "I have found out all about this poor gentleman who
+is so ill, and he did lodge in the old house once.  And as he wants
+to see all belonging to it, now that he is passing away, I sent for
+you."
+
+"Ah poor man!" says Jemmy stepping forward and touching one of his
+hands with great gentleness.  "My heart melts for him.  Poor, poor
+man!"
+
+The eyes that were so soon to close for ever turned to me, and I was
+not that strong in the pride of my strength that I could resist
+them.
+
+"My darling boy, there is a reason in the secret history of this
+fellow-creetur lying as the best and worst of us must all lie one
+day, which I think would ease his spirit in his last hour if you
+would lay your cheek against his forehead and say, 'May God forgive
+you!'"
+
+"O Gran," says Jemmy with a full heart, "I am not worthy!"  But he
+leaned down and did it.  Then the faltering fingers made out to
+catch hold of my sleeve at last, and I believe he was a-trying to
+kiss me when he died.
+
+* * *
+
+There my dear!  There you have the story of my Legacy in full, and
+it's worth ten times the trouble I have spent upon it if you are
+pleased to like it.
+
+You might suppose that it set us against the little French town of
+Sens, but no we didn't find that.  I found myself that I never
+looked up at the high tower atop of the other tower, but the days
+came back again when that fair young creetur with her pretty bright
+hair trusted in me like a mother, and the recollection made the
+place so peaceful to me as I can't express.  And every soul about
+the hotel down to the pigeons in the courtyard made friends with
+Jemmy and the Major, and went lumbering away with them on all sorts
+of expeditions in all sorts of vehicles drawn by rampagious cart-
+horses,--with heads and without,--mud for paint and ropes for
+harness,--and every new friend dressed in blue like a butcher, and
+every new horse standing on his hind legs wanting to devour and
+consume every other horse, and every man that had a whip to crack
+crack-crack-crack-crack-cracking it as if it was a schoolboy with
+his first.  As to the Major my dear that man lived the greater part
+of his time with a little tumbler in one hand and a bottle of small
+wine in the other, and whenever he saw anybody else with a little
+tumbler, no matter who it was,--the military character with the
+tags, or the inn-servants at their supper in the courtyard, or
+townspeople a chatting on a bench, or country people a starting home
+after market,--down rushes the Major to clink his glass against
+their glasses and cry,--Hola!  Vive Somebody! or Vive Something! as
+if he was beside himself.  And though I could not quite approve of
+the Major's doing it, still the ways of the world are the ways of
+the world varying according to the different parts of it, and
+dancing at all in the open Square with a lady that kept a barber's
+shop my opinion is that the Major was right to dance his best and to
+lead off with a power that I did not think was in him, though I was
+a little uneasy at the Barricading sound of the cries that were set
+up by the other dancers and the rest of the company, until when I
+says "What are they ever calling out Jemmy?" Jemmy says, "They're
+calling out Gran, Bravo the Military English!  Bravo the Military
+English!" which was very gratifying to my feelings as a Briton and
+became the name the Major was known by.
+
+But every evening at a regular time we all three sat out in the
+balcony of the hotel at the end of the courtyard, looking up at the
+golden and rosy light as it changed on the great towers, and looking
+at the shadows of the towers as they changed on all about us
+ourselves included, and what do you think we did there?  My dear, if
+Jemmy hadn't brought some other of those stories of the Major's
+taking down from the telling of former lodgers at Eighty-one Norfolk
+Street, and if he didn't bring 'em out with this speech:
+
+"Here you are Gran!  Here you are godfather!  More of 'em!  I'll
+read.  And though you wrote 'em for me, godfather, I know you won't
+disapprove of my making 'em over to Gran; will you?"
+
+"No, my dear boy," says the Major.  "Everything we have is hers, and
+we are hers."
+
+"Hers ever affectionately and devotedly J. Jackman, and J. Jackman
+Lirriper," cries the Young Rogue giving me a close hug.  "Very well
+then godfather.  Look here.  As Gran is in the Legacy way just now,
+I shall make these stories a part of Gran's Legacy.  I'll leave 'em
+to her.  What do you say godfather?"
+
+"Hip hip Hurrah!" says the Major.
+
+"Very well then," cries Jemmy all in a bustle.  "Vive the Military
+English!  Vive the Lady Lirriper!  Vive the Jemmy Jackman Ditto!
+Vive the Legacy!  Now, you look out, Gran.  And you look out,
+godfather.  I'LL read!  And I'll tell you what I'll do besides.  On
+the last night of our holiday here when we are all packed and going
+away, I'll top up with something of my own."
+
+"Mind you do sir" says I.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II--MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES HOW JEMMY TOPPED UP
+
+
+
+Well my dear and so the evening readings of those jottings of the
+Major's brought us round at last to the evening when we were all
+packed and going away next day, and I do assure you that by that
+time though it was deliciously comfortable to look forward to the
+dear old house in Norfolk Street again, I had formed quite a high
+opinion of the French nation and had noticed them to be much more
+homely and domestic in their families and far more simple and
+amiable in their lives than I had ever been led to expect, and it
+did strike me between ourselves that in one particular they might be
+imitated to advantage by another nation which I will not mention,
+and that is in the courage with which they take their little
+enjoyments on little means and with little things and don't let
+solemn big-wigs stare them out of countenance or speechify them
+dull, of which said solemn big-wigs I have ever had the one opinion
+that I wish they were all made comfortable separately in coppers
+with the lids on and never let out any more.
+
+"Now young man," I says to Jemmy when we brought our chairs into the
+balcony that last evening, "you please to remember who was to 'top
+up.'"
+
+"All right Gran" says Jemmy.  "I am the illustrious personage."
+
+But he looked so serious after he had made me that light answer,
+that the Major raised his eyebrows at me and I raised mine at the
+Major.
+
+"Gran and godfather," says Jemmy, "you can hardly think how much my
+mind has run on Mr. Edson's death."
+
+It gave me a little check.  "Ah! it was a sad scene my love" I says,
+"and sad remembrances come back stronger than merry.  But this" I
+says after a little silence, to rouse myself and the Major and Jemmy
+all together, "is not topping up.  Tell us your story my dear."
+
+"I will" says Jemmy.
+
+"What is the date sir?" says I.  "Once upon a time when pigs drank
+wine?"
+
+"No Gran," says Jemmy, still serious; "once upon a time when the
+French drank wine."
+
+Again I glanced at the Major, and the Major glanced at me.
+
+"In short, Gran and godfather," says Jemmy, looking up, "the date is
+this time, and I'm going to tell you Mr. Edson's story."
+
+The flutter that it threw me into.  The change of colour on the part
+of the Major!
+
+"That is to say, you understand," our bright-eyed boy says, "I am
+going to give you my version of it.  I shall not ask whether it's
+right or not, firstly because you said you knew very little about
+it, Gran, and secondly because what little you did know was a
+secret."
+
+I folded my hands in my lap and I never took my eyes off Jemmy as he
+went running on.
+
+"The unfortunate gentleman" Jemmy commences, "who is the subject of
+our present narrative was the son of Somebody, and was born
+Somewhere, and chose a profession Somehow.  It is not with those
+parts of his career that we have to deal; but with his early
+attachment to a young and beautiful lady."
+
+I thought I should have dropped.  I durstn't look at the Major; but
+I know what his state was, without looking at him.
+
+"The father of our ill-starred hero" says Jemmy, copying as it
+seemed to me the style of some of his story-books, "was a worldly
+man who entertained ambitious views for his only son and who firmly
+set his face against the contemplated alliance with a virtuous but
+penniless orphan.  Indeed he went so far as roundly to assure our
+hero that unless he weaned his thoughts from the object of his
+devoted affection, he would disinherit him.  At the same time, he
+proposed as a suitable match the daughter of a neighbouring
+gentleman of a good estate, who was neither ill-favoured nor
+unamiable, and whose eligibility in a pecuniary point of view could
+not be disputed.  But young Mr. Edson, true to the first and only
+love that had inflamed his breast, rejected all considerations of
+self-advancement, and, deprecating his father's anger in a
+respectful letter, ran away with her."
+
+My dear I had begun to take a turn for the better, but when it come
+to running away I began to take another turn for the worse.
+
+"The lovers" says Jemmy "fled to London and were united at the altar
+of Saint Clement's Danes.  And it is at this period of their simple
+but touching story that we find them inmates of the dwelling of a
+highly-respected and beloved lady of the name of Gran, residing
+within a hundred miles of Norfolk Street."
+
+I felt that we were almost safe now, I felt that the dear boy had no
+suspicion of the bitter truth, and I looked at the Major for the
+first time and drew a long breath.  The Major gave me a nod.
+
+"Our hero's father" Jemmy goes on "proving implacable and carrying
+his threat into unrelenting execution, the struggles of the young
+couple in London were severe, and would have been far more so, but
+for their good angel's having conducted them to the abode of Mrs.
+Gran; who, divining their poverty (in spite of their endeavours to
+conceal it from her), by a thousand delicate arts smoothed their
+rough way, and alleviated the sharpness of their first distress."
+
+Here Jemmy took one of my hands in one of his, and began a marking
+the turns of his story by making me give a beat from time to time
+upon his other hand.
+
+"After a while, they left the house of Mrs. Gran, and pursued their
+fortunes through a variety of successes and failures elsewhere.  But
+in all reverses, whether for good or evil, the words of Mr. Edson to
+the fair young partner of his life were, 'Unchanging Love and Truth
+will carry us through all!'"
+
+My hand trembled in the dear boy's, those words were so wofully
+unlike the fact.
+
+"Unchanging Love and Truth" says Jemmy over again, as if he had a
+proud kind of a noble pleasure in it, "will carry us through all!
+Those were his words.  And so they fought their way, poor but
+gallant and happy, until Mrs. Edson gave birth to a child."
+
+"A daughter," I says.
+
+"No," says Jemmy, "a son.  And the father was so proud of it that he
+could hardly bear it out of his sight.  But a dark cloud overspread
+the scene.  Mrs. Edson sickened, drooped, and died."
+
+"Ah!  Sickened, drooped, and died!" I says.
+
+"And so Mr. Edson's only comfort, only hope on earth, and only
+stimulus to action, was his darling boy.  As the child grew older,
+he grew so like his mother that he was her living picture.  It used
+to make him wonder why his father cried when he kissed him.  But
+unhappily he was like his mother in constitution as well as in face,
+and lo, died too before he had grown out of childhood.  Then Mr.
+Edson, who had good abilities, in his forlornness and despair, threw
+them all to the winds.  He became apathetic, reckless, lost.  Little
+by little he sank down, down, down, down, until at last he almost
+lived (I think) by gaming.  And so sickness overtook him in the town
+of Sens in France, and he lay down to die.  But now that he laid him
+down when all was done, and looked back upon the green Past beyond
+the time when he had covered it with ashes, he thought gratefully of
+the good Mrs. Gran long lost sight of, who had been so kind to him
+and his young wife in the early days of their marriage, and he left
+the little that he had as a last Legacy to her.  And she, being
+brought to see him, at first no more knew him than she would know
+from seeing the ruin of a Greek or Roman Temple, what it used to be
+before it fell; but at length she remembered him.  And then he told
+her, with tears, of his regret for the misspent part of his life,
+and besought her to think as mildly of it as she could, because it
+was the poor fallen Angel of his unchanging Love and Constancy after
+all.  And because she had her grandson with her, and he fancied that
+his own boy, if he had lived, might have grown to be something like
+him, he asked her to let him touch his forehead with his cheek and
+say certain parting words."
+
+Jemmy's voice sank low when it got to that, and tears filled my
+eyes, and filled the Major's.
+
+"You little Conjurer" I says, "how did you ever make it all out?  Go
+in and write it every word down, for it's a wonder."
+
+Which Jemmy did, and I have repeated it to you my dear from his
+writing.
+
+Then the Major took my hand and kissed it, and said, "Dearest madam
+all has prospered with us."
+
+"Ah Major" I says drying my eyes, "we needn't have been afraid.  We
+might have known it.  Treachery don't come natural to beaming youth;
+but trust and pity, love and constancy,--they do, thank God!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy by Dickens
+
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